Table.
Responses to the survey questions testing knowledge of paracetamol toxicity 1 week and 32 weeks after broadcast of an episode of Casualty depicting a paracetamol overdose: comparison of the knowledge of those who did and did not see the episode. Values are numbers (percentages) of those who responded to question unless stated otherwise
| Question and responses | Responses 1 week after broadcast
|
Responses 32 weeks after broadcast
|
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Viewers (n=1030) | Non-viewers (n=1762) | Odds ratio (95% CI) for viewers v non-viewers; P value
|
Viewers (n=475) | Non-viewers (n=807) | Odds ratio (95% CI) for viewers v non-viewers; P value
|
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| Crude (n=2792) | Adjusted* (n=1168) | Crude (n=1282) | Adjusted* (n=1168) | ||||||
| Delayed effects of paracetamol | |||||||||
| Question: An overdose of one of the following drugs will make a person unwell to start with, then they may feel better, but a few days later they may die from liver damage. Can you say which drug has this effect? Answers: antibiotics, aspirin, Brufen, paracetamol, sleeping tablets, tranquillisers, don’t know | |||||||||
| Correct (paracetamol) | 877 (85) | 786 (45) | OR for giving correct answer† | 361 (76) | 392 (49) | OR for giving correct answer† | |||
| Incorrect (other drug) | 61 (6) | 275 (16) | 5.03 (3.75 to 6.75); P<0.0005 | 4.79 (2.63 to 8.71); P<0.0005 | 40 (8) | 113 (14) | 2.60 (1.77 to 3.83); P<0.0005 | 2.32 (1.42 to 3.81); P=0.001 | |
| Don’t know or no answer‡ | 92 (9) | 701 (40) | 74 (16) | 302 (37) | |||||
| Delay in presentation§ | |||||||||
| Question: What is the latest response time after an overdose of this drug that a person can seek help to avoid this fatal effect? Answers: 6, 12, 24, 48 or 72 hours, or don’t know | |||||||||
| 6 hours | 305 (35) | 292 (37) | 138 (38) | 133 (34) | |||||
| 12 hours | 172 (20) | 159 (20) | OR for reporting shorter times¶ | 89 (25) | 91 (23) | OR for reporting shorter times¶ | |||
| 24 hours | 121 (14) | 59 (8) | 0.67 (0.54 to 0.83); P<0.0005 | 0.62 (0.40 to 0.94); P=0.02 | 43 (12) | 41 (10) | 0.84 (0.62 to 1.14); P=0.3 | 0.69 (0.45 to 1.05); P=0.08 | |
| 48 hours | 55 (6) | 26 (3) | 20 (6) | 5 (1) | |||||
| 72 hours | 13 (1) | 10 (1) | 5 (1) | 3 (1) | |||||
| Don’t know or no answer‡ | 211 (24) | 240 (31) | 66 (18) | 119 (30) | |||||
| Fatal dose of paracetamol | |||||||||
| Question: What number of tablets of paracetamol do you think could kill a person? Answers: 15, 30, 50, or 100 tablets, or don’t know | |||||||||
| 15 | 258 (25) | 369 (21) | 140 (29) | 214 (27) | |||||
| 30 | 233 (23) | 365 (21) | OR for reporting lower doses¶ | 120 (25) | 171 (21) | OR for reporting lower doses¶ | |||
| 50 | 276 (27) | 247 (14) | 0.91 (0.77 to 1.06); P=0.2 | 0.80 (0.57 to 1.11); P=0.18 | 72 (15) | 100 (12) | 0.94 (0.74 to 1.21); P=0.6 | 0.75 (0.53 to 1.04); P=0.09 | |
| 100 | 67 (7) | 144 (8) | 29 (6) | 43 (5) | |||||
| Don’t know or no answer‡ | 196 (19) | 637 (36) | 114 (24) | 279 (35) | |||||
| Comparative toxicity of paracetamol | |||||||||
| Question: What number of tablets of each of the following drugs do you think could kill a person? Antibiotics, aspirin, Brufen, paracetamol, sleeping tablets, tranquillisers. Answers: For each drug dose stated as 15, 30, 50 or 100 tablets, or don’t know. Drugs then ranked according to responses | |||||||||
| Paracetamol singly most toxic | 145 (14) | 177 (10) | OR for ranking paracetamol as more toxic¶ | 88 (19) | 82 (10) | OR for ranking paracetamol as more toxic¶ | |||
| Paracetamol jointly most toxic | 570 (55) | 796 (45) | 1.04 (0.86 to 1.26); P=0.7 | 0.92 (0.63 to 1.35); P=0.7 | 236 (50) | 399 (49) | 1.40 (1.04 to 1.87); P=0.03 | 1.16 (0.79 to 1.71); P=0.4 | |
| Other drug more toxic | 119 (12) | 152 (9) | 37 (8) | 47 (6) | |||||
| Don’t know or no answer‡ | 196 (19) | 637 (36) | 114 (24) | 279 (35) | |||||
Adjusted for age, sex, social class, region, medical viewing habits, self reported medical interest, and general medical knowledge assessed by responses to two test questions.
Odds ratios (OR) estimated from logistic regression analyses for dichotomous outcomes.
For all questions, viewers were significantly less likely (P<0.001) not to respond or to respond “don’t know” than non-viewers. These responses were excluded from further analyses.
Only participants who correctly identified paracetamol as the drug causing liver damage are included in this analysis.
Odds ratios (OR) estimated from proportional odds models for ordinal outcomes, comparing the odds of viewers and non-viewers responding with more appropriate responses of any degree.